Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Physiotherapy sector / Atelier kinésithérapie

Physical therapy is a medical professional who uses physiotheraputic techniques with passive and active movements such as massage and exercise.

The physiotherapist, usually called the physio, is simply the practitioner of physiotherapy. Each day, Monday to Friday from 8:30 to 11:30, he receives internal as well as external patients. His work is admirable, as re-education requires stamina, patience, humility, love and compassion.We volunteers (British and national) learn from and assist Yves in his daily activities.

Physiotherapy is one of the activities of l’Arche Nongr-Maasem, and before starting our activities, we helped the physio to clean the working space as well as all of the objects to be used, because the hygiene of the centre users is of upmost importance. Activities were slow to get going at first, because the physio was careful to take his time giving us an individual profile of each of the centre users and an overview of his work with them in order to inform us­ before starting the practical work. The residents are motivated in their treatment and this encourages us volunteers to give the best of ourselves.

However, once we did get started all the preparation instantly seemed worthwhile. Our first patient was Luc, who is particularly hyperactive centre-user, therefore getting him to concentrate for an hour and a half seemed like an impossible task. I was shocked as straight away he understood the technical tasks he had to complete, and only tried to escape once in the session. This was a great success for Luc. On Friday, we worked with Judith and Albert, who are both constrained to wheelchairs, therefore we focused on upper-body movement and extension. It was great to see in this session not only a dramatic improvement in movement by the end, but a continual smile throughout the session, this is surely the best form of therapy. Let's hope Grace and Yves keep up the good work next week.